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Pop Culture

Cool video shows why so many iconic movie characters wear Ray-Ban sunglasses

Ray-Ban was about to cancel the Wayfarer line, but then one movie changed everything.

Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses throughout film history.

It’s hard to think of a more iconic sunglass design than the Ray-Ban Wayfarer. The shades are a staple of the American wardrobe and have a special place in cinema history, appearing in unforgettable films such as “The Blues Brothers,” “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “Risky Business.”

The sunglasses' classic design has made them a hit with the public, but their success on the silver screen is primarily due to some savvy business moves by Ray-Bans' parent company, Bausch and Lomb.

Toni’s Film Club, a channel dedicated to film history, shared the story of how Ray-Bans became so popular in films on YouTube.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

When were Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses invented?

Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses were initially released in 1952. Their cutting-edge design is attributed to injection-molded plastic, whereas previously, sunglasses were made from wireframes. The sunglasses became a hit after James Dean wore them in 1955’s “Rebel Without a Cause” and became a staple amongst the counter-culture.

In the 1960s, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, and Bob Dylan wore Wayfarers, cementing their place in the hipster wardrobe for years to come. However, in the ‘70s, the Wayfarers began to lose their way with the public at-large.

“By the 1970s [Wayfarers] had fallen out of style in favor of the more subtle and elegant frames and the sales had decreased so much that Ray-Ban was planning to discontinue the model. But little did they know in the summer of 1980, things were about to change,” Toni says.

In 1980, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi starred in the megahit comedy “The Blues Brothers” and wore black Wayfarers with their two-tone black-and-white outfits. The film would be a smash for the “Saturday Night Live” alumnus, and Wayfarers were back in style overnight.



Interestingly, the Blues Brothers were the antithesis of early ‘80s fashion. “Their sleek black suit and tie was a nod to earlier African American menswear and blues culture,” Bianca writes at Costume Rhapsody. “Artists like BB King, John Lee Hooker wore fedoras and suits. Many Blues artists wore impeccably tailored suits and fedoras to every gig. It was elegant Black culture, the blues, counterculture, and Chicago history.”

Why are Ray-Ban sunglasses so popular in movies?

After the success of “The Blues Brothers” in 1982, Ray-Ban signed a $50,000 deal with a company specializing in product placement. Over the following years, their sunglasses would be featured in over 60 movies and TV shows. Before “The Blues Brothers,” Ray-Ban sold 20,000 pairs of Wayfarers a year; by the time Tom Cruise donned the shades and danced in his underwear in 1983’s “Risky Business,” sales were up to 360,000 yearly.



In 1984, Don Johnson wore them with his white jacket, sportcoat and pink T-shirt on “Miami Vice” and sales spiked to 720,000 a year. After Bruce Willis wore them in “Moonlighting” and they were featured in “The Breakfast Club” (1985), sales were up to 1.5 million a year.

“[The Wayfarer] became a pop culture phenomenon. It was referenced in songs, books and media. It was worn by so many iconic people that it turned into a symbol of being cool,” Toni says in the video. “I mean, even the cool emoji wears them. And nowadays, more than half a century later, it can still be seen in a long list of film and TV.”


On May 10, 2017, actor and activist Leonardo DiCaprio took to Twitter to save a marine species.

"The vaquita is the most endangered marine mammal in the world," he wrote of the species, which can only be found off Mexico's shores in the Gulf of California. "Join me [and the World Wildlife Fund] and take action."

It may seem like an average tweet, coming from one of the biggest environmental advocates in the world. But the tweet has had global ramifications.


Photo by National Geographic Channel, courtesy of the Everett Collection.

As DiCaprio noted in a Facebook post that same day, unsustainable fishing has caused a steep decline in the total number of vaquitas.

There may only be 30 left in the gulf right now — a 90% drop since 2011 — which also explains why there seem to be so few photos of the rare porpoise in the wild.

A rare photo of a vaquita. Photo by World Wildlife Fund.

One major reason for the falling numbers is China's hunger for the totoaba fish, which also only lives in the Gulf of California. Mexican fishermen use massive gill nets to catch the totoaba and ship the marine animals to China — an illegal practice in itself. But all too often, vaquitas get caught in these nets and are needlessly killed.

This doesn't just affect the vaquita either. Illegal fishing is harming many other marine species in the region, too — species that local communities rely on for food and business.

DiCaprio linked to a petition by the World Wildlife Fund calling on Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to act now to save the species in his Facebook post and tweet.

Among other demands, the letter urges the president to implement and enforce a permanent gill net fishing ban.

Photo by Alfredo Estrella/AFP/Getty Images.

To Nieto's credit, his government has taken some steps to save the vaquita.

In 2015, Mexico implemented a two-year gill net fishing ban. But it wasn't properly enforced, advocates argued, which helps to explain why vaquita numbers continued to dwindle. What's more, what little effect the ban did have on dissuading fisherman is now gone entirely because the ban expired in April 2017.

DiCaprio's posts did actually catch the attention of the Mexican president, who responded on Twitter.

In a series of tweets, Nieto explained how his government has upped efforts to save the vaquita in recent years, such as expanding its protection zone in the gulf and committing 300 marines and 15 boats to monitor the area.

Still, DiCaprio's call to act seemed to spark new urgency from the Mexican president, who made a very public commitment to ensure the vaquita won't be lost forever.

Not everyone has over 17 million Twitter followers like DiCaprio, but we all have a voice.

Use it to tweet your support for the Word Wildlife Fund's petition and put more pressure on Nieto and Mexico to save the vaquita.

Leonardo DiCaprio's new documentary, "Before the Flood," has been on YouTube for just a few days, but it already has millions of views.

The documentary is a moving, uncompromising look at climate change, produced by both DiCaprio and National Geographic. In the documentary, DiCaprio, who's been an outspoken supporter of climate action, gives us a refreshing, very frank look at what the climate change situation is really like.

DiCaprio doesn't pull his punches on the big stuff, but what actually fascinated me were some of the smaller, simpler, more emotional moments.


"Before the Flood" is an hour and a half long, and I can't recommend watching it enough, mostly because of these five affecting, emotional moments that stayed with me once the movie was done.

1. The quiet moment when a researcher admits how much the natural world means to him.

All images are screengrabs from "Before the Flood"/National Geographic/YouTube.

Near the beginning of the film, DiCaprio goes up to Greenland to check out the glaciers and ice sheets. You'll get to see amazing footage of crevasses and ice floes, and he also does some really cool interviews, including one with a local hunter.

But one moment in this scene stands out: DiCaprio is standing with Dr. Enric Sala, a marine ecologist and National Geographic explorer, watching some narwhals come up before them. You can actually hear the whales click and purr.

Then, just at the end, Sala turns to DiCaprio and says, unbidden, "You know, I don't want to be on a planet without these animals."

2. The moment in Beijing that made me think about my own family.

A short while later, the crew is in Beijing talking to a Chinese woman who's holding an air mask in her hand. She explains what it's like to live surrounded by Beijing's legendarily bad air pollution, mentioning that her family puts on their masks when they step outside and feed the cat.

"When the air is bad it hurts my throat," the woman says.

The scene isn't as visually impressive as drone footage of smoke stacks or giant industrial machines, but it stuck with me all the same. It sounds like the kind of everyday comment someone in my family might make.

3. The moment when Sunita Narain called out DiCaprio's wishful thinking and told him to get real.

Later, DiCaprio goes to India to talk to Sunita Narain, an environmentalist and activist. About 30% of India — roughly 300 million people — still live with no electricity, so the discussion turns to how to bring power to people without resorting to fossil fuels.

If you're like me and like thinking about the nitty-gritty of climate change — not just the big goals but the hard truths and big questions — this is an amazing exchange. But the best part is when she calls out the U.S. for wanting India to move to renewables while the U.S. drags their feet.

"If it was that easy, I would have really liked the U.S. to move towards solar, but you haven't," Narain says. "Let's put our money where our mouth is."

It's real, uncompromising conversation and actually feels awesome. It's a "take that" to every simpering, milquetoast politician who's more concerned with firing up their base and talking pretty than getting results.

4. The moment I'll remember every time I watch a snowy movie from now on.

While they were filming "The Revenant," they actually had to have the snow trucked in. It was too warm. In fact, they ended up having to fly halfway around the world to frosty Argentina in order to continue filming.

I remember "The Revenant." I remember the snow and the cold and the biting frost of that film. To think of future movies having to truck in snow is just so ... weird. I'm not sure I'll be able to see any frozen, snowy landscape without wondering how much snow was there and how much had to be trucked in.

5. Finally, what might have been my favorite moment: when DiCaprio asked Obama a really uncomfortable question.

This is my favorite moment in the film by far.

"You are the leader of the free world," says DiCaprio. "You have access to information that most people do not. What makes you terrified for the future?"

Obama's answer? He waxes poetic about his kids for a moment, but when it comes down to it, he says, a huge amount of people live near the ocean. If the sea levels rise, those people will need to flee to somewhere — and that could be a problem.

"In very hard-headed terms, you've got to worry about the national security implications of this. And the capacity for the existing world order as we understand it to survive the kinds of strains that the scientists are predicting."

In truth, this movie is full of amazing moments. It was really hard to pick just five.

There were so many awesome scenes, like when DiCaprio visits the mayor of Miami Beach, which is already experiencing flooding, or when he feeds rescued orangutans in Indonesia and tried his Italian on Pope Francis.

But in the end, "Before the Flood" has two simple messages.

One, we have to consume differently. We need to think about where our food and lifestyles are coming from. In many ways, though, we're beyond the stage where simple actions can solve everything. So two, and perhaps more importantly, we all need to vote. We need world leaders who will invest in renewables and put taxes on carbon.

The final segment, by the way — where DiCaprio gives a speech to the United Nations — might be the most affecting. I found it hard to not tear up. But I'm not going to link to it because you really owe it to yourself to watch the whole movie.

Since he sailed onto millions of middle school bedroom walls in "Titanic," Leonardo DiCaprio has been winning the Oscar of our hearts on a daily basis. Now, at long last, he's finally won an Oscar IRL.

A swanky man. Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images.


Even though this is Leo's first win, he's been doing award-worthy work on the sly for some time now — on issues arguably more important than whether one 19th century dude can make it over a mountain with freezing wet hair.

"Climate change is real. It is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species," DiCaprio said in his acceptance speech.

It's not the first time Leo has gone to bat for the Earth and the most vulnerable folks who live on it. Here are five other times we wish we could give him a golden statue for.

1. The time he stood in front of the UN and begged politicians and CEOs to stop pretending that global warming was someone else's problem.

Lots of celebrities have pet causes. Angelina Jolie has orphans. George Clooney has Haiti and Darfur. Aaron Carter has Donald Trump.

Leo? He's taken on the minor task of preventing the complete, apocalyptic annihilation of the human race at its own hands.

Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images.

And he doesn't just talk the talk, he talks the talk in front of some of the most powerful people on planet Earth. Here's what he said at the UN back in September 2014:

"This is not a partisan debate. It is a human one. Clean air and a livable climate are inalienable human rights. Solving this crisis is not a question of politics. It is a question of our own survival. This is the most urgent of times and the most urgent of messages."

Dude knows how to give a speech.

2. The time he bro'd out with John Kerry in Paris and helped secure perhaps the most important international agreement on climate change in history.

John Kerry and Leonardo DiCaprio have a lot in common. They're both human males. They've both appeared on great American sitcoms (seriously!). And, most importantly, they both went to bat for #TeamEarth in Paris in December.


That meeting they were at? It ultimately produced the Paris Agreement, a landmark climate charter between 195 nations of the world, all of whom committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to limit global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius.

These are countries that ... don't always agree with each other, to put it mildly. I'm not suggesting DiCaprio was single-handedly responsible, but I wouldn't be surprised if Xi Jinping's office contains 18 newly-signed copies of "What's Eating Gilbert Grape."

Just saying.

3. The time he used an acceptance speech to speak up for the rights of Native Americans and First Nations people around the world.

In his Golden Globes acceptance speech for "The Revenant," Leo gave native communities worldwide a much-needed, well-deserved shoutout.

The reason? To remind an audience of millions that their struggle for land rights continues to this day — something that rarely gets a lot of attention, especially at a big Hollywood awards show.

Some have criticized "The Revenant" for relegating Native American characters to the background, while others have praised it for accurately depicting the native characters it does feature as belonging to distinct, competing tribes with unique cultures. Leo couldn't have used his visibility better in this moment.

Respect.

4. The time he promised to stop investing in fossil fuels and started putting his considerable monies toward greener ventures.

Not only is DiCaprio part of the Divest Invest Coalition, which urges investors and organizations to take their money out of companies that contribute to climate change, he's an investor in a startup that's attempting to use mobile technology to make waste disposal cleaner and more efficient.

This way, the greener our trash hauling economy becomes, the richer Leonardo DiCaprio gets — and the more likely he gets a Spruce Goose in real life.

GIF from "The Aviator."

Powered by emission-free hydrogen fuel cells of course.

5. The time he pledged $10 million of his foundation's money to save Earth's oceans.

In addition to ponying up the cash, Leo has spoken out forcefully against the destruction of aquatic ecosystems, for the rights of people living on the low-lying islands of the Pacific who are struggling with sea-level rise and for the health of Earth's oceans general.

"We're plundering the ocean and its vital resources," DiCaprio said in a speech to the Our Ocean Conference in October 2014. "And just because we can't see the devastation from dry land, does not mean it's any less dangerous to life on earth. And it has to stop."

This is a huge step for Leo. Let's not forget, this is a man who drowned in the ocean just 19 years ago.

GIF from "Titanic."

Way to let bygones be bygones, Leo!

And congrats on the big win! This award is deserved not just for one great performance but for everything he's done to make the world a better place.

Thanks for fighting the good fight, Leo. Can’t wait to see what you do next.